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i was wondering if the holley 4160 list number 6830 is any good and worth rebuilding. or if i should buy the conversion kit and make it a 4150. it came off of another ford truck with a 390 that ran.
it will be going onto a rebuilt 390 with a cam thats a touch over stock, edlebrock performer intake. the truck is a 73 highboy with a 4 speed manual transmission
Before you do anything check the throttle shafts for wear, see how much play the primary has. They all have some and if the throttle arm side has about the same as the rest it should be okay. Check it at about 1/4 throttle open..
750 cfm is way too much for even a moderately built motor. Common practice and mistake is to over carb a motor. A stock 390 could get away with 450-500.
i see that the holley kit came with what i believe to be some kind of plastic throttle shaft bushing? if that is so are the original bushings that way as well, i know chem dip isn't so nice to such materials.
On most Holleys those bushings are for the secondary shaft. Holley rarely uses bushings on the primary shafts.
The bushings aren't bothered too much by carb cleaner, unless you let the pieces soak for 6 weeks or so (see above).
Use care if you do decide to replace the secondary bushings. The throttle plate screws tend to twist off when being removed, creating another issue to deal with.
Mark the throttle plates side to side, front and rear and top and bottom before removing them. When reinstalling the shaft and plates be sure to back off the secondary throttle stop before centering the plates in their respective bores. I use Loctite and restake the screws once everything is reset.
I just rebuilt a 4160, I didn't use chem dip due to the fact no one carries it around here. I used eagle one mag wheel cleaner and it clean it up very well. then I hit all the casing with a brass wire wheel, made it look like new. after I had finished the rebuild I was told an old trick, you can boil the carb in 50/50 water and lemon juice. from what I seen this works. another trick is using pinesol to soak it in, my buddy said that's what he uses. its safe and doesn't harm anything left on the carb.
The rebuild kit I bought had extra pieces due to the fact that there are a few of the carbs that use a lot of the same parts. so it was pretty much a universal kit for a few different models.
there seems to be a lot of extras i didn't see when i was tearing mine apart. i wish holley would of given me a list of the contents and to which carb each piece was for.
I've been reading up on carb soaking and came across the pinesol soak, going to try that first and if it works pretty well ill return the $20 chem dip.
does your carb have the gold color tint to it? mine only had it on the body of the carb and the eagle one took most of it off so it now matches the rest of the carb. stuff is strong. so if you try that stuff watch out. My buddy swears by the pinesol trick and says that all he uses.